The terms “gambling” and “betting” refer to a risking of something, typically money, with respect to the outcome of a future event. Typically, two or more people gamble on different outcomes of the event, and the winner, or winners, collect all, or a substantial portion of a prize pool. The event may be a sporting, racing, or political event, for example. The ratio between the risked amount and a return is typically referred to as “odds”. Typically, the odds of an outcome correlate with the likelihood of an outcome occurring.
A horse for example, may have odds of 50 to 1 to win a particular race. If $1 is wagered on this outcome, the return is $50 in the event the horse wins the race. The likelihood of the horse winning is considered to be approximately 1/50.
Betting is typically coordinated between gamblers by a third party entity. In horse racing, for example, this coordination has been traditionally satisfied by bookmakers at a race track. More recently, bookmakers have been replaced by larger companies offering gambling external to where an event occurs, sometimes via the Internet.
There are a number of betting products on the market, some specific to a type of event, others more generic. For example, a trifecta is a betting product where an outcome is the horses, for example, that finish in first, second and third places. Another, more generic betting product, is simply betting on a win for a horse, team, or political party, for example.
Another category of betting products relates to the calculation of odds. These forms include “pari-mutuel” betting and “fixed odds” betting.
Pari-mutuel betting is a form of betting in which the odds are not known to a gambler when placing a bet. The odds are determined after new bets are no longer allowed. The odds change as bets are placed on an event. In other words, the odds are dependent upon the other bets in the pool as the total pool is split among the winners. In pari-mutuel betting, the bookmaker has no risk as the betters are effectively betting against each other with the winners sharing the combined pool.
Fixed-odd betting is a form of betting where the odds are known to a better when placing a bet. The bookmaker chooses the odds for the event. These odds may be continually updated, but a gambler is provided the odds offered at the time the bet is placed, irrespective of any later changes. The bookmaker may base the odds upon previous bets, his own knowledge and/or other factors.
Modern gambling has generally moved from the traditional bookmakers to larger companies running complex information technology systems. Services are often provided directly over the Internet, or via communications means to a number of smaller outlets. As these systems are typically large, the odds provided/offered are typically accurate.
A disadvantage of the above described prior art systems is that separate systems are required for different betting products. For example, fixed-odd and pari-mutuel betting, if both offered by a betting provider, are provided by specific and dedicated systems. This results in higher acquisition and maintenance costs as compared with a single system as multiple systems must be purchased, developed and maintained. The ongoing additional cost of maintaining numerous systems is considerable and represents a significant cost to a business offering both fixed odds and pari-mutuel betting products.
A further disadvantage of known systems is that they are not easily extensible to allow for the addition of new products. Products and the events to which a product refers, are inseparable in known systems. Thus the addition of a new product requires substantial system modification which usually incurs a significant cost in the form of high skilled labour costs to attend to any requisite modifications.
Therefore, there is a need to overcome or alleviate one or more of the above identified problems associated with known wagering systems.